


over the breakers

by iphigenias



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Coming Out, Domesticity, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Patrick Brewer is Gay, Post-Canon, Pride, coming to terms with heteronormative expectations, he really is!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:13:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29054958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: “Being queer saved my life. Often we see queerness as deprivation. But when I look at my life, I saw that queerness demanded an alternative innovation from me. I had to make alternative routes; it made me curious; it made me ask, ‘Is this enough for me?’” — Ocean Vuong
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 30
Kudos: 212





	over the breakers

**Author's Note:**

> first off, re: the summary, i just want to say that i have many conflicting emotions about the use of the word "queer" to describe lgbt+ experience. i have no problem with anyone choosing to individually identify as such, but the use of the word as an umbrella term for the lgbt+ community (and its offshoots, including "queerness" "queering" etc.) is something i have to disagree with. queer is a slur that has been reclaimed by many but it is still just that; a slur. using it in a communal sense opens up the avenue for non lgbt+ people to use it; people who have no right nor space within which to reclaim it. i personally don't identify as queer, and in my mind patrick doesn't either, but i've left that open to interpretation here. vuong's quote just really speaks to me, and as it was the basis for this fic i wanted to use it, whether i agree with the language or not.
> 
> moving on! this fic uses a tidbit of workskins, by the lovely [CodenameCarrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodenameCarrot/pseuds/CodenameCarrot). turning on creator's style is recommended! title is from deeper water by paul kelly

When Patrick tells his mom David doesn’t want kids, her face does this sad, weird crumple he’s only ever seen the day his dad fell from a ladder while cleaning the gutters when Patrick was in eighth grade. She doesn’t ask Patrick what he wants, or say that David might change his mind, but there’s an absence to her smile that wrecks Patrick as surely as a coral reef. “There are other things,” is what she does say.

Dinner that night is meatloaf and a summer salad, and conversation flows as usual. Patrick sits in the chair he sat in for eighteen years and folds a piece of lettuce smaller and smaller on his plate and laughs at David’s attempt to talk ball with his dad and laughs again at the look David gives him for laughing. When they curve together in Patrick’s old double bed that night their knees knock and Patrick plants a sloppy kiss on David’s nose and knows the way their bodies fit into place without looking, without thinking. Patrick loves their life. He loves David’s nine step skincare regimen and the way his husband looks in the morning, cheek creased red from the pillow. He loves the store and he loves their house, the granite countertop in the kitchen they’d both compromised on, and he loves the way David looks at him when he comes, like fine fucking art, like the second coming, like the goddamn Kate Bush moors. He loves Stevie and he loves Twyla and he loves Ronnie just as much as he’s scared of her and he loves their handmade, homemade family, the way David’s grin splits his face open when Alexis FaceTimes them from her kitchen, the way Patrick can map out the muscle on his back any day, every day, because David’s his _husband_ , and he’s so fucking happy some days he wakes up smiling.

What other things? Patrick wants to ask. It’s two am and the house creaks around him and David is breathing very softly by his ear and Patrick is vibrating out of his skin with the question. What other things! he wants to yell from the trellis outside his window that Rachel used to climb in senior year when they were stumbling, fumbling teenagers and Patrick had to remind himself to close his eyes when he kissed her. What other things, than this life he scarcely dreamed of, this life he was so scared of, this life that shifts and bubbles and turns and twists and shocks Patrick with its dynamism, as if to say: look! look! life can be this! let life be this! What other things, than _fortunately, I am a very generous person_ , than _consider this my olive branch_ , than _I love you_ , than _yes! it’s a yes!_ What other things, Patrick wants to ask his mom, who loves David as much as she’d loved Rachel, who is the smartest person Patrick knows, the kindest, the most honest. Who raised a son who played sports and had a girlfriend and lived an equation of a life at the end of which the nuclear solution. What other things would be enough for you, Patrick thinks he should ask. How can I be enough for you, this son you never knew you had, with a life you barely recognise.

By his side, David snuffles, rolls over in his sleep. David has never asked if he’s enough. David is bold and brilliant and his mouth twists a certain way when he’s happy and a certain way when he’s not and there’s a scar over his left knee from the time he split it open against the bed of Roland’s truck during a vendor pickup. David looks at Patrick sometimes like there’s nothing else he’d rather spend his time doing and his hands are so big on Patrick’s thighs and the first time he saw David’s hard cock Patrick thought he might die from the wanting. David blushes so prettily and the crease of his elbow is exquisitely moisturised and Patrick could live one thousand lifetimes and still never know every side of his husband, every shadow and beam of light. David is constantly surprising him. What other things? David might say, in his stupid clout sunglasses Patrick loves. Well, for starters, a Keurig. And Patrick would shake his head, or drape his arms around his husband’s neck, and David’s serious face would fold as easily as Ray at poker night. What other things? he’d say again. You tell me.

Even dream-David avoids the question.

*

Sixteen-year-old Patrick was all limbs and no muscle, jogging the three laps of Maymont's football oval in falling-apart Nikes and his dad’s old Jay’s cap. Rachel MacArthur had red hair and a mean throwing arm and when Patrick first kissed her at Stephanie Walton’s pool party she tasted like chlorine and vanilla lip gloss. She wore jeans and a red hoodie the day she met his parents, and a green off-the-shoulder to prom. The first time they had sex Patrick didn’t know where to put his hands. His orgasm punched out of him like the final stretch of an 800 metre and Rachel said “I love you” after, unquestionably, bafflingly certain.

They broke up twice in high school, and three more times in college. During their time apart Patrick’s heart beat faster, he woke up earlier, his runs in the morning stretched longer. In the in-between he dated a girl named Katie with a sunflower tattooed on her forearm and had coffee with Jack-from-econ almost every day after class. Patrick traded t-shirts for blue button-downs because that’s what business majors did, and cut his hair the way Rachel liked. In junior year he read _Pride and Prejudice_ because Rachel had just seen the film and it took him two months to get through because he didn’t know love could be like that. Sharp and witty and unwavering.

After graduation Patrick moved back home and three months later he moved in with Rachel. He moved out again two years later. When he was twenty-five they holidayed in Boston, and Patrick matched Rachel smile-for-smile because the city! the river! the skyline! the people! It made his heart want to beat right out of his chest. “You’re happy here,” Rachel said one morning as Patrick hummed and flipped pancakes in their little apartment kitchenette while Taylor played on the radio. “Maybe we could make this an annual thing.” Her arms looped around his waist from behind and she pressed her face into the space between his shoulder blades.

“Maybe,” Patrick said, already thinking of next year, and the year after that. The thought wrinkled something in his chest.

*

At home, David sleeps on the right side of the bed, and curves into Patrick like a parenthesis. When Patrick wakes in the morning it’s just gone half six, and he spends ten minutes looking at his husband in the pink morning light. David’s ear is still red from the weekend’s sunburn and there’s a spot of drool on the pillow by the corner of his mouth. Patrick wants to marry him. Patrick _is_ married to him—wants to do it again, over and over, fold his vows into the spaces between his husband’s ribs and slide the ring down his finger every morning, a promise made, a promise kept. Yesterday David dropped a vase from Patrick’s aunt Judy on the kitchen tile and Patrick loved him. Last week David somehow deleted Patrick’s vendor spreadsheet from the desktop _and_ the recycle bin and Patrick loved him. David pops his pimples in their shared en suite and drinks Hannah’s organic orange juice straight from the carton and refuses to have sex with Patrick while he’s wearing socks and Patrick loves him.

“I can hear you thinking,” says David’s sleep-groggy voice, and Patrick curves a hand around his husband’s jaw and kisses a good morning into his skin. He says, “go back to sleep, David,” and his husband opens his eyes instead, crusty and petulant.

“ _You_ go back to sleep.”

“I’m opening.”

“At _nine_.”

“Okay, honey.” The word only slips out in their sleep-soft bed, and David’s face folds itself into a pleased, embarrassed smile. Patrick wriggles across the mattress to tangle his legs in David’s and presses a kiss to his husband’s hairline. David’s breathing evens out again in his arms, and Patrick watches the sun rise from the half-open curtain until his own eyes fall closed.

*

Their first anniversary Patrick gives David a blowjob and the song he’s been writing in stops and starts for three years. David cries when Patrick sings it for him in their living room, with the carpet David chose on the couch Patrick wanted. Patrick rests the guitar against Jake’s coffee table and kneels between David’s knees where he’s sitting on the loveseat. He runs his hands up his husband’s thighs and kisses David when his hands finally fall from his face, puffy and red and beaming. “I got you hiking shoes,” David gasps into the kiss, his hands all over Patrick, red hot and questing.

“I love them, they’re great shoes,” Patrick reassures him, finding the hem of David’s sweater and tugging it until David gets the memo, wriggles it free along with his t-shirt. Patrick’s hands find the zip of David’s jeans and he fumbles, laughs, gets it open, pulls the denim to David’s knees. The thin cotton of David’s black briefs bugles and Patrick kisses him over the fabric, David’s hands fisted in his hair, teasing until David _twists_. “I have you,” Patrick murmurs, pulling his husband’s cock free and licking right down the vein, wiry hair at the base tickling his nose. He takes David into his mouth, hollowing out his cheeks and wrapping a hand where his lips can’t reach, sucking and twisting in unison, pressing David’s cock into the wall of his cheek and feeling the bulge with his other hand. David moans, loud and broken, as Patrick eases him down his throat, chokes, backs off, then tries again, head tilted. He lets his hand slide around to David’s balls, teasing them, then circles a wet, blunt finger, against David’s hole, and David comes. Patrick swallows what he can, chokes on the sticky sourness, slides off his husband’s dick with a wet pop and wipes the drool and come from his chin with the back of his hand as David heaves great, panting breaths above him.

“Come here,” David gasps out, pulling Patrick up into his lap, slips his hand inside his jeans and boxers and jacks Patrick off with a handful of sharp, powerful strokes, until Patrick is coming, his face buried in the swoop of David’s collarbone. Distantly, he registers David sliding his hand free, wiping it on the denim of Patrick’s two-for-one dark wash jeans, nosing along his jaw until Patrick lifts his head and curves his smile into a sloppy, easy, one-year-married kiss.

“This is—” David kisses him, “really—” another kiss, “gross.”

“Mm.” Patrick shifts in David’s lap, nudging their soft, sticky cocks together. He kisses his husband again. “One more minute—” lips along David’s jawline, “then I’ll carry you to the shower.”

“Uh huh.” David is smiling, and Patrick has to kiss it. “Maybe I’d let you—” his voice hitches as Patrick bites down, “if it wouldn’t throw your back out.”

Patrick kisses the fresh bruise. “Speak for yourself old man.”

“I can’t believe I married you,” David says, but his voice is warm and suffuses something bright in Patrick’s chest.

“But you did,” he replies, leaning back so he can see the silly, stupid smile break over his husband’s face.

David voice is soft when he says, “yeah, I guess I did,” and Patrick can’t wait to do this forever.

*

In Rachel’s motel room after the barbecue, Patrick holds his hands out between them, like he’s afraid Rachel will try to touch him. “So it was never real,” she says, sitting on the bed, her suitcase one half of the twin set they’d bought for Boston. Patrick doesn’t answer. She lifts her head and looks at him, fearless and beautiful as ever. “Was it?”

In his head, Patrick divides his life in two: David and before-David. Schitt’s Creek is vibrant and alive and _happy_ and Patrick’s life here is a funhouse carnival, a feature-length film, the sweet and bright of farm-fresh honey and cloudless, blue sky days stretching on and on like bad weather is a bedtime story Patrick can’t quite remember, worn and fuzzy at the edges.

“I don’t know,” Patrick answers, honest, because before-David he’d thought that’s just what life is, and it was _good_ , and good was _fine_ , until he turned a corner and there it was: _great_.

“But you’re gay.” The word in Rachel’s mouth is accusatory, and makes Patrick feel small as much as it makes him feel right. The “I don’t know” that rushes out of him is only half a lie.

“Okay,” Rachel says. “Okay.” She wipes at her eyes with the heel of her hand and looks at Patrick again. “Are you happy?” she asks, and her voice doesn’t break on the words, and Patrick loves her there and then the most he’s ever loved her his whole life.

“I was,” he says. “I don’t know if—” The words choke up in his throat.

Rachel stands. “Bullshit.” She never swears. “If he’s worth it, don’t let it go.” And Patrick thinks of Boston, of Lizzie Bennet and awry hearts, and says, “I’m sorry,” and Rachel laughs.

“I know, Patty. Now can you leave me alone to cry?”

When Patrick hugs her, her shoulders are bird bones; fine-winged, delicate. She smells like vanilla shampoo.

*

His mom is quiet down the line when Patrick tells her the news. It’s a Saturday afternoon, and she’d have been tending the veggie patch out back when the phone rang. His dad is probably asleep in the La-Z-Boy, an old _Murder She Wrote_ re-run playing on half-volume through the house. His mom would have carried the phone back out into the yard, to the swing-seat on the porch by the hydrangeas. Patrick fiddles with a loose thread on his sock as she thinks.

“And you’re sure it’s good idea?” she finally asks. “You barely know the owner.”

“I know, Mom.” Patrick is cross-legged in bed, cradling a cup of tea in one of Ray’s novelty mugs. This one reads _World’s Greatest Great-Granddaughter_. “But it’s a sustainable business model and the owner is—” charming, remarkable, electrifying, “really promising. His family’s been in business before.”

“Well, if you’re sure, dear.”

“I am.” There’s muffled voices down the line and his mom clears her throat before speaking again.

“Your dad says hi. He saw Rachel yesterday.”

Patrick’s throat closes. “Listen, Mom, I gotta go, but I’ll call you later, okay?”

“I love you,” his mom says. Patrick ends the call. The screen shows one new notification.

David Rose  
  
**David:** so i know you said youd meet me at the store tomorrow but just wanna clarify what time so i have adequate notice to distract alexis  
  
**David:** also what are your thoughts on those mittens we unpacked yesterday bc i have a creeping suspicion they were not, in fact, a fall leaf pattern  
  
**Patrick:** I can be there by 9  
  
**Patrick:** And the leaves were clearly weed David I thought you realised?  
  
**David:** WHY WOULD I WANT TO SELL WEED MITTENS AT MY STORE???  
  
**Patrick:** Well I’m not sure I could say  
  
**Patrick:** I’m just the numbers guy  
  
**David:** wow youre sooooo funny  
  
**David:** also, 9 on a sunday?  
  
**David:** incorrect  
  
**Patrick:** So 8:30 then  
  
**David:** **(skull emoji)** **(knife emoji)** **(toilet emoji)**  
  


*

It’s Ronnie who invites them to Elmdale’s Pride parade. David picks out Patrick’s nicest jeans and tightest polo shirt and paints a careful spray of rainbow glitter across his cheek, hand steady with the brush. David isn’t wearing black for once, and the sight of his husband in the orange sweater he’d worn to their first open mic night makes Patrick want to stand on his toes and kiss him against the kitchen cabinets, which he can, so he does. “I love you,” Patrick says, and David runs a thumb along his cheekbone, careful around the glitter.

“Come on, we’ll be late,” he replies, and it sounds like I love you too.

Ronnie drives them in her truck with her girlfriend Laura in the front seat. She’s an Elmdale local and works at the library and has a crooked smile Patrick likes immediately. “I never believe a thing she says about you,” she’d said to Patrick when they met. “Between you and me, she’s a bit of a sore loser.”

“You should sit with David next time you come to a game,” Patrick said, ignoring his husband’s glare. “Though I should warn you, he gets pretty into it.”

“My kind of man.” Laura winked and climbed into the truck. David raised a wonderful eyebrow when Patrick slid in beside him but didn’t say a word.

Elmdale is a riot of colour when they arrive, and Patrick pulls David, laughing, into the corner between two buildings and kisses him because they can. They melt out onto the street in the high noon sun and David lifts Patrick onto his huge, broad shoulders and they eat ice cream on the town square grass and Patrick licks the hazelnut from his husband’s mouth. A teenage girl with pink hair and Doc Martens recognises them from the store, gushes to David about how much she loves their Instagram, promises to drop in as soon as she gets her licence for the eucalyptus cleanser they’ve started stocking. They have dinner at a café that isn’t Twyla’s with Ronnie and Laura and Patrick’s smiled so much today his cheeks hurt, and he eats his food one-handed because his other won’t let go of David. “I loved this. I love you,” Patrick says in the car on their way home, Laura asleep in the front seat, Ronnie listening to the radio. David doesn’t reply and when Patrick looks at him his eyes are closed and there’s a sleepy smile on his face and Patrick is so fucking lucky he pinches himself.

When he glances up Ronnie is looking at him in the rear-view. “Thank you, Ronnie,” he says, and the words are so sincere they hurt coming out. She rolls her eyes, says, “yeah, yeah,” but turns the dial up and it’s classic Shania, and when Patrick sings along and wakes David and Laura halfway between Elmdale and home Ronnie grins at him in the mirror, the first time ever, maybe, and it’s perfect, it’s so perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @[svnsvstvrk](https://twitter.com/svnsvstvrk) on twitter


End file.
